Posts by dropoffyourkeylee

i am not sure how you all feel as we all left at different times for different reasons.... but this new bible seems to have put some final nails into a coffin that was once my jw life.

the religion is so far and so different to the religion i grew up in that it has become something i feel no affiliation with anymore, no bond, no shared ideas or even sentimental views.

different teachings on when the end is coming.

I always had an issue with the old NWT 'mental regulating' in Eph 6:4. Besides the connotations of mind control, the Greek just didn't support the NWT reading. The translator really used his imagination to justify the 'mental regulating' wording. Most other translations simply rendered it 'admonition', and when the 2013 NWT returned to 'admonition', I was glad to see it.

24

Stupid WT Q's : Is It Wise or Safe to Keep a Dog? Demons—How Can We Resist Them?

by Sea Breeze in

yes, that is an actual question in the awake magazine.

jw kids lives are already miserable enough trying to obey all the ignorant rules of the wt.. no sports, no school dance, no holidays.... just field service.

as if that isn't enough.... let's take away their puppy dogs too!.

dropoffyourkeylee

kites, windchimes, chess, movies, music, drinking too much, drinking too little, you name it. The WT has come out against just about everything at some point or other

10

Return door to door

by Hellothere in

any news about how it's going with the return too door 2 door preaching?

are the jws excited about it?

are they facing any opposition to it by householders?

dropoffyourkeylee

Doesn't seem like they are eager to go D2D here (midwest US). The wife went to the KH one day last week and she and one teenage boy were the only ones to show up. She came right home to join the zoom group. This in a congregation with over twenty pioneers.

22

My mom died.

by noni1974 in

jw
friends

it's been years since i posted here.

my jw mother died july 5th.

it was quite honestly not that emotional for me.

dropoffyourkeylee

My condolences.

When my mom died I was really thrown for a loop, but when my dad died a few years later it didn't bother me a whole lot. I'm not sure why, but I understand where you are experiencing.

17

Where did Enoch go - God transferred him?

by Fisherman in

god did not take the lives of the wicked contemporaries of enoch, instead he took the life of enoch.

and that seems like a great injustice to deprive innocent enoch of life instead of killing the wicked.

—i said seems.. a man goes to get surgery but first they give him an opiate like narcotic and he falls asleep gladly and with pleasure and euphoria.

dropoffyourkeylee

I'm not hugely read up on this subject, but as Beli noted, there are volumes of non-Biblical references to Enoch. The stuff of legends; occasionally legends received brief mention in the Bible, and without the context of the source it is difficult to tell what the Bible verse is talking about. This reference to Enoch being 'taken' is one such reference to legend.

68

Where it all went wrong for the WT - JF Rutherford

by LoveUniHateExams in

i was thinking a bit about this the other day.

ct russell, from what i remember about him, kinda seemed like a genuine, nice(ish) guy, although he had a few eccentric but harmless ideas.. during the russell era jws (actually bible students) could still celebrate christmas, worship in other churches if there was no kingdom hall available, and accept blood transfusions.. then after russell died, along came rutherford - a major league a-hole, for sure.. rutherford had plenty of eccentric ideas but at least some of them weren't/aren't harmless.

some have been long forgotten about - jesus depicted without a beard, the plan to rename the names of the week because names such as thursday (thor's day) is pagan, the articles about the 'dangers' of aluminium, etc.. one key contribution of rutherford which does a lot of harm is no blood transfusions, even in life-threatening situations.. another is shunning, something which never occurred under russell, or at least was much milder.. rutherford has a lot to answer for, i reckon ....

dropoffyourkeylee

I've read all the Studies and have been a keen observer of all things Watchtower for better than 40 years. Much of Russell's writings can be thrown in the dustbin of history; a product of the 1800's theological landscape of the US. I could be OK living with that in a religion's history, but virtually all the things about the JW religion which makes me just want to scream came from the scheming and devious minds of J F Rutherford and F W Franz.

53

HM Queen Elizabeth is dead.

by stan livedeath in

long live the king..

dropoffyourkeylee

I was watching a live stream of the Behavior channel and someone in the chat commented that the Queen had died, and this was at least an hour before the news broke. I don’t know how this person knew.

34

1985 and baptism...I wish I had read this before today

by enoughisenough in

i am posting a link as to being legally bound to jw rules at time of baptism.

i only did a quick skim, but what i gathered is interesting, and what it says about 1985 may be of use to some hoping to just fade and not be bothered.

in 1985, the questions were changed at baptism for legal purposes so they could have causation to defend themselves should you decide to sue for whatever reason.

dropoffyourkeylee

Here is my two cents, for what it is worth:

The WT has always had (at least post-1919) a fixation on the criteria which defines who is a member of their faith. In Russell days they didn't worry too much about it, in fact they were proud to say they didn't have a creed or clergy, but were just Bible Students. Then when WW1 came along, Rutherford et al were giving out signed affidavits to 'members' to the effect that they belonged to a pacifist religion and thus exempt. In their trial, Rutherford was challenged to prove these persons were 'members', and couldn't do so. The boys had subscriptions to the WT and their fathers were often elected elders of an ecclesia, but that was just about all the documentation they had. Rutherford and the associates went to jail for violations of the Espionage Act. They were later released and their retrial never happened because the war ended and the prosecution dropped it.

Ever since then they have introduced things which were created or invented primarily in response to US draft laws. It was all about the US draft and keeping the WT leaders out of jail. The Espionage Act is still US law even to this day.

Recording field service time = documentation that someone is a 'minister'

Doctrine that 'all Jehovah's witnesses are ministers', even young boys = a way to get young boys of draft age to qualify for a ministerial exemption

Invention of 'publisher' = documentation that a person preaches, thus is a 'minister'

Invention of 'pioneer' = documentation of 'full time minister' status

Central organization of control/appointment of elders, rather than local 'elected' elders = documentation of who has qualification to be a minister

Ministry School = documentation that a boy has 'ministerial training'

Books such as 'Qualified to be Ministers' = shows their fixation on documentated qualifications

Publisher record cards = written documentation preserved so as to give the boys something to present to the draft board

Baptism candidate, 80 questions pre-baptism and 2 questions at baptism = Despite claims that they didn't have a 'creed', the questions served as documention that the candidate had completed some course of ministerial study.

There's probably more I can't think of right now. Although over time most of these things have become part of the religion and have morphed into something else, when they were first conceived and introduced to the JWs, it was all about the US draft.

I came to these conclusions some years ago after reading the court transcripts of the 1918 Rutherford trial and the 1954 Walsh case.